


Lawnsigns

by Lysol, Nellsie



Series: Lawnsigns: An American Musical [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Bigotry & Prejudice, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-07 22:38:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11068545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysol/pseuds/Lysol, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nellsie/pseuds/Nellsie
Summary: Natalya, who turns seven in August, isn't sure how to deal with new neighbors, especially when they disturb her and her friends. Her dad, a xenophobic trust fund baby and former Brooklynite, certainly doesn't help when it comes to these things.When it comes to most things, actually.





	1. Chapter 1

_June 2005 -  Natalya._

It's the last week of dance before classes are over for summer break, meaning they had a year end party. Everyone took an extra hour passing around phone numbers and email addresses and whatnot. Nat could personally do without, but you could really only get to the snacks after all that’s done, and she really only came to class because of the food.

She idly licks chocolate cupcake frosting from her fingers. They'd stop and go again, stop and go again. She looks out the window, watching them move forward, inch by excruciating inch. They've been in traffic for more than an hour now. 

Keith, Leon’s dad, suddenly does a big sigh up in the front seat, the kind where you kind of blow loud air through your nose. He turns off the radio. If she leans forward a bit she could see him roll his eyes in the rearview mirror. 

“Funny how big of a difference an hour could make, hmm?” Cynthia, Leon’s mom, says to Keith. She pats his arm reassuringly, and Nat watches this exchange with interest.

It was interesting how Leon had parents. It was interesting how Malika had parents. Married couples were always so… strange. It was fun to watch them interact, though. Nat could imagine how things could have been with _her_  parents.

“Well, I mean, it sure as hell wasn’t this crowded before God knows what happened in the nineties,” Keith replies. “I’m telling you, Cynthia, border control is the way to go! Even after 9/11 these morons don’t know the meaning of border control. I mean, how well do we have to outline it? We. Don’t. Want. Them. Here. Jesus, at least Bush has got his head screwed on straight. ”

“I’m an immigrant, Keith," she reminds him gently. "Dad came from Hong Kong in the sixties.” 

Nat leans forward a bit in her booster seat to try to see his face in the rearview mirror again. She doesn’t know what happened in the nineties, or what 9/11 is, or what border control entails―she’s only six―but Keith sounds angry, and his facial expression when angered amuse her. His thick eyebrows move up and down when he talks, but that’s really where the family resemblance between him and Leon ends.

In most cases, Natalya can say her friends look like their parents. When it's not ironed straight for dance, Malika has really, really curly hair like her mom. Alfred looks a lot like a very young version of his dad, but Leon does not look like his parents at all. _Maybe he's adopted,_ Natalya thinks, squinting at her friend.

He and his dad have the same eyebrows and the same brown hair, but Leon’s hair is long enough to touch his shoulder blades, soft and fine to the touch. Keith, on the other hand, has elected to slick back his hair, making his forehead seem much higher than it likely is. Keith is a young father―all parents are old to Natalya, but Keith is younger than most―but he talks like he’s heard every bit of information he needs for the rest of his life. He’s always very well dressed, and very, very clean. Still, for all the work he puts in, Keith does not seem very inviting.

Cynthia, on the other hand, is even smaller than Keith, with long dark hair and even darker sunglasses. The tiredness that seems to make itself home on most mothers’ faces hasn’t quite reached her yet, and Natalya thinks that must be good, because Keith cringes whenever he sees other mothers in the neighborhood with age on their faces.

Natalya likes Cynthia, because sometimes she makes cookies when Leon and Natalya are hungry, but Leon’s dad is entertaining for a number of reasons.

“―and I’m just saying, if all these immigrants just come into our country and decide that they’re free to take what they want―”

“Malika’s not an immigrant,” Leon pipes up suddenly.

“She’s from New York City,” Nat adds. Nat isn't sure what exactly they were talking about as a family or why Leon seemed so worked up all of a sudden, but she still feels the need to tell everyone who's willing to listen that Malika’s from New York City. They went there a few summers ago; she could still remember the highlights from that trip.

The airport scanners at the Empire State were one of them. Telling Iryna she’d push her from the top was another. (Getting chewed out by her father after saying those things was less fun, but it didn’t stop Natalya from saying it again after Bill’s back was turned.)

Cynthia turns around to see both Leon and Natalya in the backseat and says tightly, “Now, you know we wouldn’t talk about your friend like that. I’m sure Malika’s a fine girl. Your father and I are having an adult conversation now. You wouldn’t understand.”

Leon slumps back into his booster seat, defeated.

Natalya doesn’t understand, it's true, but she doesn’t like people telling her she doesn’t understand. She glances at Leon, who leans on the car door beside him. His mom and dad keep talking in the front, though Keith does most of the talking. Natalya gets the impression that if Cynthia gave any real input, she’d be ignored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, kids. It's the Republican Dad AU no one ever asked for, ayyy! :D
> 
> Just a heads up- for the sake of this series we're mostly going to stick to content warnings at the beginning and references/fun facts/Easter eggs in the end. Not that there's gonna be _too_ many content warnings in the first volume. What could six-year-olds possibly do?
> 
> References:  
>  _It sure as hell wasn’t this crowded before God knows what happened in the nineties_ is a reference to [Virginia's population](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/virginia-cant-afford-its-population-boom/2016/05/06/241b18f2-07df-11e6-b283-e79d81c63c1b_story.html?utm_term=.06437af9759e) which has been steadily growing more since the nineties.


	2. Chapter 2

_July 2005 - Leon._

It’s been a few weeks since Grade 1 ended, but some things never change. Going over to Nat’s house every Friday is one of those constants, for example. They’ve been doing that for as long as Leon could remember, his dad and Nat’s and Al’s dad. Apparently they went to the same school at some point.

Leon can’t really imagine them being classmates no matter hard he thinks about it, because Nat’s dad looks like he could be her grandpa. In fact, if he didn’t know that Bill was Natalya’s dad, he might have just assumed she had an especially spry grandfather.

Often, getting dinner at Natalya’s house is the highlight of the week―because Leon likes Natalya and he likes her _a lot_. She’s smart, possibly one of the smartest first graders he knows. Not book-smart, but clever. Clever and creative and witty and resourceful. Those would all be appropriate words to describe Nat. And when Leon thinks of Natalya, he recalls when she argued with a teacher for him on the first day of the school year.

“Leona? Leona Kirkland?” The teacher―a skinny woman with a shrill voice―had called from the attendance sheet on the first day. They had made it past Natalya A. and Alfred  J. without a hitch. She glances around the room for a moment, pausing on little girls who look like they’d suit the name.

“Just Leon is fine,” Leon had corrected. He tucked some hair behind his ear. He sat with his back straight and made eye contact the way his dad taught him. His dad always stresses that Leon should keep really good eye-contact, and it’s hugely disrespectful if you don’t look at someone when they talk to you, that sort of thing. (Leon’s dad is all about respect, for whatever reason.) So Leon stared at the teacher, who had mean, beady brown eyes.

His name was one of the two things he decided to change the summer after Kindergarten, with the other being that he’d no longer wear his hair down when playing soccer. It was too long, and too messy. Leon couldn’t see the ball properly if his hair was getting in his eyes.

“I beg your pardon?” The teacher gave Leon a sharp look from over her clipboard.

“If you can call Alfred ‘Al’ and me ‘Nat’, why can’t you call Leon ‘Leon’?” Nat asked beside him, sticking her chin out in defiance.

“Because that’s a boy’s name, and Leona’s a girrrl!” Some boy pipes up. Leon shoots him a dirty glare, and he grins back smugly in return.

The teacher frowns, an expression Leon has grown accustomed to seeing on the face of his mother. He gets the feeling that he’ll be seeing that frown on his teacher’s face more often than not.

After school that day, she called his parents.

“If she wants to be called ‘Leon’, let her be called ‘Leon’,” his dad had said, waving his hand dismissively. “It’s a phase; she’ll grow out of it.”

“But that’s a boy’s name!”

Leon’s dad gave her a look. A condescending look. A look that said ‘I had to leave work early for this?’

The issue was dropped, but Leon could hardly say he was looking forward to repeating it when grade two starts.

“Look, I see one of the new neighbors,” Iryna says―Natalya’s sister is nearly nine years old, and if they didn’t share such a resemblance, Leon would have a hard time believing they were sisters. Iryna is just so… nice, in Leon’s opinion. That isn't to say that Natalya isn't nice, but she's nice in a different way―she slides out from her chair and goes to the kitchen counter, peering out the window. Al goes over too.

“I want to see too, boost me up!” he demands. Al is a scrappy little thing with two missing front teeth, but everyone says he’ll get taller eventually and his teeth will grow in. His dad is tall, and Alfred looks just like his dad, according to just about _everyone._ (And Leon can see it, for the most part. They both have the same blonde hair, and the same blue eyes. Alfred’s dad is just… much, much older, with tired eyes and receding hair.)

Iryna boosts him up.

The moving truck was there since Wednesday morning, but this time, a smaller van had joined it, parked on the sidewalk beside their house. They were positioned so the back of Nat’s house faced the back of the new neighbors’ house. A boy with wispy blond hair, about eight or nine years old, Leon guessed, was sitting on their back steps with a sketchbook.

Al had scrambled to kneel on the counter now, pressing his face to the glass.

“How long were they there for?” He asks. Iryna shrugs.

“I hear they’re international,” Al’s dad says, ignoring the question. He goes over to them now, squints out the window a little. Bill comes over too, eyeing the blond youngster with interest.

“French? German? I hope they speak English. Not like those Poles down the street, goddamn.”

“Bill, my friend. In Europe everyone who matters speaks English. Not a worry.” That was Leon’s dad. He washes down his potatoes and gravy with a swig of sweet tea. Leon’s dad did a semester abroad in Germany once, and a semester abroad in South Africa. They still have pictures.

They watch as Sketching Boy’s equally towheaded younger brother comes out through the backdoor, dragging a truck on a string, talking to him. Sketching Boy stands up. Leon imagines that the younger brother was telling the older one to go in for dinner, or something like that.

“We could use some good immigrants here, you know.” Fred says, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “That family looks like an honest family if I ever did see one. Good kids. I saw their mother earlier today drivin’ home.”

“Good _legal_ immigrants, like not the type which only come for state benefits,” Keith agrees.

 _Based on what, the color of their skin?_ Leon thinks, but keeps that to himself.

“Immigrants should be able to make their own, and that’s a fact. My own grandparents arrived at Ellis Island from Eastern Europe with nothing but a suitcase in the 1800s and made their first goddamn million right in New York, and here I am.” Bill strokes his mustache as if he said something particularly profound.

“We should invite them over,” Leon’s mom suggests from the table. “At the end of the month, maybe, or for Leon’s birthday.”

Leon would rather only invite over people he knows, personally. He watches the brothers go inside, and wonders if there are any other children in that family.

“What are we all looking at?” Nat demands, having returned from the washroom and boosted herself to the countertop as well. “Move.” She pushes Al aside and squints out the window. “I don’t see anything.”

“Hey!” Al glares at her.

“Sorry, didn’t see you there.” Natalya sticks her tongue out at him, and Leon remembers that dinner at Natalya’s house is the highlight of his week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun facts:   
> We named Bill after money. This is because he's an absurdly rich trust fund baby. 
> 
> Keith D. Kirkland is Leon's dad's full name. The "D" stands for dick, or Donald. If we could think of a faceclaim for Keith it'd be Paul Ryan with at least 30% more eyebrow. 
> 
> Together, the dads are supposed to (very badly) spell out the acronym B.A.D. (Bill, Alfred, Donald). 
> 
> References:   
> _Keith's semester abroad in South Africa_ pays homage to a fantastic District 9 fic which featured a xenophobic bully of an exchange student in South Africa with the same name.
> 
>  _My own grandparents arrived at Ellis Island from Eastern Europe with nothing but a suitcase in the 1800s_ makes a reference to the way a lot of wealthy and accomplished early immigrants arrived - through Ellis, and often with very little. Bill's family presumably came over during the late 1890s and made their 'first million' during the Roaring Twenties.


	3. Chapter 3

_July 2005 - Natalya._

“They have a boy your age,” Cynthia says, patiently braiding Leon’s hair. Nat watches him squirm. The pull of her fingers on his tangled hair is clearly unwanted, and actively protested against. “Don’t you want to look nice in front of your new friend?”

“No!” Leon argues, pulling away from his mother. “He’s _not_ my friend- I don’t even know him!”

Malika arrives shortly before lunchtime. “I don’t want to get your new present dirty,” she explains apologetically, pulling him into a hug and then giving him the gift bag in question. “I think you’ll really like it!” She beams.

“They’re probably books,” Nat says.

She sneaks a look inside when they’ve gone upstairs and finds the first three Harry Potter books and an owl plush.

Al got the stomach flu last week. He probably won’t be showing up today. His father shows up almost apologetically during lunch with a Play-Doh cooking playset. Nat could almost imagine him stumbling through the Girls Section of _Toys"R"Us_ and being totally, absolutely, hopelessly lost on what 'little girls' might like. 

She almost feels sorry for him, but then she wonders why adults are so adamant about Leon being a girl when his gender is clearly none of their business, or why their dance instructors are so adamant about Malika straightening her hair when it doesn't even matter when the hair end up in buns too tight to tell anyway. _Adults are stupid and horribly impractical,_ she decides to herself, and dwells on it while Leon and Malika play Harry Potter. _I'm not going to be a stupid adult._

Their new neighbors arrive a little before three. The older boy immediately plants himself on the couch, producing a Tamagotchi from out of nowhere.

“Erik!” His mother scolds. “Come say hello.”

While the adults introduce themselves, Nat watches as another boy―Erik’s younger brother, presumably―peeks out from behind their mother. He clings to her leg, staring at Nat warily.

Nat stares back boldly, unimpressed. _What a baby._

Then, when his mother is preoccupied, she makes the meanest face she can possibly make.

He vanishes behind his mother again and Nat runs away gleefully, rejoining Leon and Malika in the back garden. She wonders if she can get someone to do something funny today for the game, like eat dirt or an earthworm. She got Alfred to eat the dirt in his backyard last week as punishment for losing the game, but now he’s sick and it’s a huge drag. 

It's another few years and another few math classes until Natalya will learn about correlation vs causation. Stuff like Pearson's correlation coefficient would be right up Malika's alley but certainly not hers, she'll learn in time as well, but for the time being in July 2005 she considers that Alfred getting sick the day after eating a spoonful of dirt might be too much of a coincidence to be an accident.

She tries to push the new arrivals to the neighborhood to the back of her mind. Quiet Erik and his scaredy-cat brother will be old news by next week, she assures herself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dads learn about their new neighbors. They're going to be racist and sexist and Keith is gonna make at least one kid cry in the process.

_July 2005 - Malika._

She and Leon and Nat continue their game at his party before dinner, predictably. It doesn’t really have a name other than ‘The Adventure Game’, as in whenever either Leon or Nat go to her house they’d go, “Hi, Mrs. Vasseur-Emeka, can Malika play?” and upon further prodding from her mom―“what are you thinking of playing?”―they’d say “The Adventure Game!”

The game isn’t very consistent. Sometimes it was dragons, other times it would be secret agents, sometimes it’ll be the mafia.

Sometimes Nat’s older sister, Iryna, would join in. Other times she wouldn’t.  Alfred usually comes around with his plastic guns and pretends to be an army man shooting terrorists or “enemies of the state”, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and sometimes when they’re extra rowdy Bill will open their screen door and yell at him to ‘play nice with the girls’.  War games aren’t for girls, he’d say.

Malika doesn’t mind him playing with guns, and she’s sure Nat and Iryna didn’t either. But Bill ignores her whenever she brings the fact up, and it makes her almost indignant, in a sense. If she is a boy she doesn’t think Bill would be so quick to ignore her feedback.

It’s a lot quieter without Alfred around though, she thinks to herself. It’s a shame he’s sick.

The new boy is sitting in his mom’s lap. She’s trying to feed him cake, but he keeps turning his face away. She’s pretty sure his name is Emil. He looks like an Emil, which is weird, because Malika hasn’t really heard the name before today.

She clambers onto the empty chair next to him, recently vacated by his older brother, who now wanders the house somewhere unknown to Malika.

“Hi, Emil,” she says, holding her hand out for a handshake. “Hi, I’m Malika. I’m seven years old, like you. Do you wanna play with us?”

He twists away and buries his head into his mom’s shoulder, resisting her best efforts to peel him off or coax him to shake her hand.

“Aw. Shy around girls?” Bill asks as he passes. “I remember those days. Don’t worry, he’ll grow out of it soon enough.” He lets out a laugh. Malika is always sort of startled when Bill laughs. He kind of laughs like Pete from the _Mickey Mouse_ cartoons, or Bluto from _Popeye._ It’s a loud laugh.

Malika frowns in concern, tilting her head. He seems more scared than shy, so―

“Oh no. I’m nice, I promise. And Leon’s nice too. And so’s Natalya. Alfred’s also nice sometimes, but today he’s sick, so he’s not here, but you’ll probably meet him later? It’s not like you’re going anywhere, right?”

“Alfred had diarrhea,” Nat announces from across the table through her last mouthful of cake. “And he was puking his guts out yesterday.” She picks up her plate and licks it. “Leon and I are going to play. Coming, Malika?”

Malika wanted to, but it felt wrong in her gut. Like excluding him, almost, in a sense.

“Go ahead, I’ll stay!” She calls. She doesn’t mind sitting with the adults. She likes listening to adults talk. Her mom would sometimes bring her to her lectures, back when they still lived in New York.

Sometimes, she really, really misses New York. She misses the friends she left behind in first grade and the―somewhat polluted―smell of the air. Still, she reminds herself that if she stayed in New York, she would have never had neighbors her age―everyone in her apartment complex was either retired or new parents with babies.  Then she doesn’t feel as homesick.

“… so I’m kind of a sentimental guy, I named my Leona after the town my folks are from, yeah?” Keith is saying to Emil’s mother.  “They call it a city, but Leona’s an a hundred man stronghold deep in the heart of Texas, and my favorite memories beside Wharton all involve going back there for the summer―”

Malika could definitely tell. Leon had a huge flag of Texas pinned to his living room wall. Her grandma bought her a children’s atlas last Christmas, which had all the 50 American states, and Texas is one of the more memorable ones. Wharton is an Ivy League business school.

“We named him after an Austrian mathematician,” Emil’s mom says, taking a sip of tea. She shifts him slightly in her lap. “Both our sons were named after mathematicians.”

“Oh yeah, so your folks live and breathe math then? Coming over to Norfolk―from what, Norway, you said?―just for a teaching position?”

“Trondheim, yes. Now he's going to make the drive to Charlottesville every day to teach linear algebra.”

Malika tries to imagine Emil’s dad and his wheelchair making the three hour drive each day. Keith looks very impressed. Malika remembers how he hates driving. Back when her mom taught at Cornell they made the hour drive from Syracuse to Ithaca every day, but that was different. At least they were still in New York city.

“So, your wife was telling me how you were her math professor earlier?” Bill is saying to the man in question. “You like them young, right? You get older, and she stays the same age.” He whistles, and Emil’s dad shifts uncomfortably.

“No code against student-teacher relations in Norway?” Fred adds.

Malika’s never really seen an adult squirm half as hard before. She feels bad.

“Actually, we married after I got my bachelor’s degree. We met at a music festival?” Emil’s mom says from the other end of the table. Malika feels like she must be told this sort of thing a lot.

“Some music festival, damn. If I could score a hot chick I’d continue going to music festivals.”

This conversation is making Malika very uncomfortable, so she tunes into Keith and the moms’ conversation, which seemed to be still about occupation―Emil’s mom used to be a concert pianist, and before she came over she taught violin.

Cynthia Kirkland is someone who remains quiet in conversation, for the most part, but there’s a spark of interest in her eyes as she listens to the other mom speak.

“I didn’t know you taught violin!” She exclaims, and Malika is sort of taken aback. Cynthia isn’t loud very often. “You should teach Leon. I _loved_ learning music when I was a kid, it was just… it’s nostalgic, you know? I think about guitar and I remember the guitar my dad used to teach me was bigger than I was and―”

Bill calls Cynthia over to the other side of the room, where he and Fred are having a conversation about stay-at-home-fathers versus stay-at-home-mothers, and they’ve decided to see if a “real woman” like Cynthia would even consider being together with a stay-at-home-father. At least, that’s the gist of the conversation, from what Malika can hear, which is a lot. Bill is very loud.

“I’ve been married and divorced thrice already, I guess I’m just not that type of guy.”

Bill is speaking and chewing at the same time.

“Or maybe it’s the women! My first wife was Ukrainian, and let me tell you, she was a demonic bitch. Didn’t let any man tell her what to do. Really nice body, though. My second was Russian, and she’s got my son. Couldn’t fight for custody as effectively, as she actually spoke fuckin’ English.  Last wife was from Belarus. It ended badly; she was, you know, what do they call it, few screws loose? But long story short, I got Natalya in the end.”

Malika flinches a little at the swear, catching her mom’s gaze across the table. Her mom looks concerned.

“What kind of math do you teach?” Malika’s mom asks Emil’s dad. Malika looks away from Bill and tries not to think about the concerning things pouring out of his mouth. He scares her, sometimes, with what he says, and he is… a bit of an oversharer. Maybe she should have went to play with Nat and Leon.

“Linear algebra.”

“So you’re a writer and an anthropologist and a math professor? You’re like, the ideal renaissance man!” Keith exclaims, and Emil’s dad glances at the floor and the coffee table while Keith stares at him intently. Malika doesn’t get that―her dad says it’s good manners to make eye contact―but Keith never really looks her or her parents in the eye, either.

“My dad’s a writer!” Malika says to fill the silence, and she doesn’t really mean anything by it. She thinks it’s nice that her father and their new neighbor have something in common. “And an artist. He’s at a showing right now. He’s kind of a renaissance man, too.”

Bill seems to look past her, and Fred picks his teeth and glances away. Malika glances at her mother. Did she do something wrong? She didn’t mean to brag or anything, she just thought it's kind of interesting. She looks away from her mom and down at her shoes.

“What does your dad write?” Is said by a small voice, and Malika turns to see Emil looking up at her curiously. He’s opening up! Maybe she could even get him to join the Adventure Game. Adult conversation isn’t nearly as fun as it seems. She grins, leans back, takes a deep breath-

“Lots of stuff! He’s a lawyer. He even lets me proofread some of it. Civil law, history, economics-”

“You did not proofread economics.” Keith interrupts suddenly.

It got very quiet for a few moments.

“I beg your pardon?” Malika says, taken aback.

“There’s no way a six-year-old could understand, let alone proofread a paper on economics. Personally, I would never let _my_ daughter get away with lying to adults.” A pointed look at Malika’s mother.

“She’s seven. She’s seven and very bright, so we teach her what she wants to learn at home. Why don’t you go outside, Malika?” Her mom says tersely.

She could feel her ears burning and the others at the table staring. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Malika slides herself out from her seat and goes outside.

Natalya and Leon stare, but they don’t ask.

They leave an hour before it is supposed to end, but she's almost glad for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References: 
> 
> _Deep in the Heart of Texas_ is a song. You can listen to it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGF4ibgcHQE). Sheldon Cooper sings it in The Big Bang Theory. Quite a few weekends were spent trying to find Texas-related songs for this project, or perhaps for a playlist related to this project in the future, and this is simultaneously the best and worst one. Also, we totally think that Keith should only speak in the titles of bad country singles from now on.


	5. Chapter 5

_August 2005 - Emil._

Throughout that first summer, Leon is the only kid in the neighborhood that Emil really talks to.

It starts because Leon is taking violin lessons with his mom, and she’s a really great teacher, in Emil’s opinion. Leon practices a lot, and often his lessons are cut short because of that, which gives him time to explore their home.

Really, it won’t be another few years before Emil thinks of the house as ‘his home’, because their home, in his mind, is still the blue apartment overlooking the Nidelva. Home is where he sat by the window with Erik and watched him sketch―mostly of things out their window: sailboats and animals and people on bikes. Here, the only things out their window are other people's houses. 

This house is empty, too big, his room is too empty―he doesn’t think he’ll ever fill it. American things are too big, he thinks in muted despair for the third time that week. Their trucks. Their houses. Their serving portions. Big and unfamiliar. The not-home feeling was a similar feeling to visiting his grandparents in Iceland, who live 45 minutes outside the city, in that their farmhouse was just a house he slept in. It was home for his mother, of course, who grew up in that house, but wasn’t much of a home for him.

He’s not used to a room all by himself, either―he and Erik and their pet bird all shared a room back home, and the new room is terribly dark. There’s a tree next to his new bedroom window, too, and sometimes the branches would tap against the windowpanes in the most awful way. He remembers being unhappy and upset most of the time the first month. The first summer, actually.

Erik offered to buy him another bird.

“It won’t be the same,” Emil wailed, scrunching his mother’s shirt up in his fists. They gave all their pets away to various neighbors before they left. It wasn’t _fair_.

He and his mother make a trip to a furniture outlet, where they bought a bed, a nightlight, and a dresser. For the most part, the room is still empty.

After the first time Leon saw Emil’s room, he came back the week after with his violin in one hand, straining to carry two Macy’s bags full of toys and books and board games in the other. Of course, Emil’s mother runs out to help him carry the bags, and after lessons they poured over the contents together.

“It’s for your room! They’re from all of us! Except for Malika, because she’s in New York right now, and can’t really give you anything, but her mom let me look in her room for stuff you might like and she didn’t think Malika would mind but I didn’t take anything because I _felt_ bad, like what if I take something really important, and anyhow I think she’d bring us each something when she gets back―”

“Even Natalya?”

“Natalya wanted to give you itching powder. And by that I mean she wanted to put itching powder on these bags and everything in these bags. But like, no! I mean, like, _some_ of the books are from Iryna―they’re _Magic Tree House―_ I think you’ll really like them! Every kid likes them. And their dad got you the guns.”

The nerf guns are easily half his size. Emil is slightly afraid of them. They play most of the board games―Monopoly Junior, Snakes and Ladders, Candyland, Trouble―that summer. Sometimes, if he was around, Erik would play too.

Alfred scares him. His dad scares him too, with the truck and the slogans, all in varying degrees of stars and stripes. _God Bless America. Support Our Troops. Proud to be AMERICAN._ He’s run into Alfred a few times at the park, and none of those times were fun, either.

“You still play with stuffed animals?” He had said once, coming up to Emil, barefoot and muddy. “That’s so gay.” He’s always so loud, too, and he’s always yelling. Emil just doesn’t understand it. It’s like Alfred has one set volume.

“Emil! Play soccer! We need a goalie!” Alfred hollers, and he kicks the football―soccer ball, as they call it―and it smacks Emil hard in the shin and the others are staring. Natalya and Leon and Malika, and he doesn’t need Natalya’s judgment or Leon and Malika’s pity, so he walks away and as soon as they’re far enough he runs.

For career week, which was sponsored by their community center, Alfred brought in all six of his toy guns, talked about how his dad was in the army and how much of a hero he is to the American people and how he's gonna join it too when he grows up and shoot terrorists full of holes like how his dad does.

Emil noticed that there are other little boys who say that Alfred’s dreams are super cool. Even worse, he also noticed parents who exchange amused looks and nods during the presentation. _Why? Killing doesn’t help anyone._

Malika’s nice, but Emil hates feeling like a burden, hates the way she’s always going out of her way to make sure he’s included. She’s also smart, quick as a whip, smarter than any other kid he knows. Before she left for New York that summer she showed all of them how to use a blade of grass to whistle. She’d crouch patiently beside Natalya to fix her fingers. Alfred, who sat beside Emil, sprayed him with spit.

Keith, Leon’s father, surprises their family with tickets to see some big baseball match and he’s never seen anything quite like it before― even more American flags than necessary, the singing of the national anthem. Leon and Cynthia and Keith all had matching jerseys and caps.

* * *

Erik, meanwhile, seems to have found a friend in Iryna. The first time they hung out with Emil, Iryna had cooed and fussed over him, telling Erik what perfect, beautiful hair his little brother had. Erik and Iryna pulled out a hair braiding kit from under her bed and most of the afternoon was spent braiding his hair and then rummaging through Iryna’s closet, wanting to find clothes they could dress him in.

Natalya barged in during the middle of that, looking for her scissors, and Alfred follows. She leaves as soon as she digs them out, but Alfred lingers for a while, staring at them work and chewing on his sleeve. Emil watches him, tense, not wanting to be made fun of. He has half a mind to grab his own shirt from the pile of Iryna’s clothes, but he’s frozen in fear.

“Cool hair!” He says after a while. “Can you braid mine, too?” And he leans on Iryna until she pushes him off―“your hair’s too short, Freddy, go away―”

“Don’t call me Freddy!”

And only when Alfred’s gone and the door’s safely shut does Emil relax again, leaning back against his brother, exhaling in relief. “He didn’t say it was gay.”

“Why’d it be gay? It’s just hair and clothes.” Erik puts the comb down, satisfied and apparently unbothered.

“Does he know what it means? His dad uses it a lot as an insult,” Iryna adds. “We got him to stop using ‘girly’ as an insult just this year.”

Emil thinks about that a lot.

“Come, Emil,” Erik’d say often that summer. “We’re going to Iryna’s house.”

Emil would never want to go, because ‘Iryna’s house’ meant ‘Natalya’s house’, and Natalya terrifies him. His door is safely deadbolted shut whenever Erik had Iryna over, because it usually meant that Natalya would be there at some point, too.

Out of all the other children, Natalya is the one Emil has the hardest time understanding. She isn’t overbearing and loud, like Alfred, but she isn’t calm or nice, like her sister. Natalya is brash and rude and _mean,_ and Emil doesn’t understand why.

It seems like Natalya has something against Emil specifically, sometimes. She always glares at him when he’s with _her friends._ Natalya is always sure to stress that Malika, Leon, and Alfred are _her friends._

“Bullies are often insecure about themselves, that’s why they do it,” his mother would say. “They do it to get a reaction out of you, so they feel in control. If you ignore them, they’ll most likely stop.”

August comes and goes. At the end of August she has all the kids in their circle at her seventh birthday party except for him. Emil watched them run around in her yard, seething silently―their yards were only separated by a wire fence. The more he thinks about it the more indignant he gets. It’s not like Emil was here to steal her friends. She can keep her friends; he doesn’t need them.


	6. Chapter 6

_September 2005 - Natalya._

“Leona Jade Kirkland, come right back here―you can’t wear just that to your first day of school!”

On the morning of September 5th, 2005, which was a Monday, Natalya stands in the Kirkland foyer sipping orange juice, watching Leon’s mother wrestle him into a black cardigan. From the looks of it, it’s new. It’s new and his parents got it in the Gap Back to School sale over the weekend. It even smells new.

“She can’t use her camp backpack―it’s old. Get her to take the new one!” Keith yells from somewhere upstairs.

“She’s not even wearing her cardigan and you expect her to be using the right backpack?” Cynthia shoots back, finally managing to button Leon up.

He’s already in jeans and a white cotton T-shirt. That’s perfectly fine for the first day of school, in Natalya’s opinion. It was better than the grubby orange soccer jersey and scuffed up shoes Leon usually wore in the summer, in any case.

She finishes her juice just in time to be ushered out onto the Kirkland driveway, where Leon’s mother pulls out a camera, gushing about how it’s the first day of her baby’s second year of grade school. When the camera goes off Natalya feels underdressed, unready, and rushed.

This morning, after waking up to see Bill and some strange lady eating breakfast together, she made sure to leave the house as quickly as possible. She doesn’t trust or like any of the women her dad brings home, and from what she'd overheard she thinks the sentiment is mostly mutual.

The start of the second year of school was a lot like the start of the first year of school, Nat thinks. It was raining lightly. They played introduction games in a circle. They were arranged in table groups and told to make name tags. This year, she isn’t with any of her friends. Last year, it was Malika who was the odd one out.

Luckily, she sees them at lunch recess again―Leon’s long shed his cardigan, Malika looks positively _darling_ in her new glasses and jean skirt, and Alfred wears the same T-shirt and cargo shorts he’s always worn. She caught a glimpse of Crybaby Emil sitting on top of the short monkey bars with his weird brother and Iryna over in the big kid playground, and thinks that that’s how it should be. Emil’s been an unwanted part of their group for too long.

* * *

 After school, they go to the neighborhood playground. Malika and Leon end up on the swing set and Alfred plays soccer with some older kid with a dumb British accent he met that day and now won’t shut up about. Apparently he lives in their neighborhood and they're expats from England, and they moved in this year. Nat isn't sure why she never noticed him for this long, but he's uninteresting enough that she forgets about him after a while.

Annoyingly enough, Crybaby Emil is somehow _also_ there, but Natalya doesn’t like thinking about him and how he’s come into her friend group uninvited and now prevalent, like some kind of invasive species, so she ignores him. She resolves that eventually, whether he wants to face the facts or not, he will get the message.

Still, it’s kind of infuriating, watching him stand by the swing set with that same hesitant expression. He’s not even  _on_ the swings yet and he looks scared. Natalya doesn’t understand him and his dumb crybaby tendencies.

She has half a mind to give him something real to cry about, but Malika and Leon made her promise not to be mean to him on his first day, and Natalya doesn’t want to upset or disappoint them. Still, it takes a lot of willpower not to stick her tongue out at him when he glances at her.

She doesn’t even understand _why_ her friends like playing with him so much. It’s not like he’s even that fun to talk to. Nat thinks it would be entirely too easy to take him down in a fight, and that’s a problem. Natalya could give anyone a run for their money in a fight ―especially Leon, who was the weakest and would go down in a matter of seconds, probably―but at least she could count on her other friends _trying._ Emil, on the other hand, seems like the type who would roll over and cry uncle at the earliest opportunity, and Natalya hates when people do that. Cowards.

Leon, specifically, is adamant about them playing with the stupid baby. Natalya can’t figure it out _at all._ She understands Malika wanting to tend to a charity case―Malika’s always let things like other people’s feelings dictate her behavior. Malika’s nice enough to let this obvious wimp into their friend group, but Leon? Natalya doesn’t mean to imply that he isn’t nice, but he isn’t the type to just open their group up to anyone, and yet it seems Natalya is the only one who doesn’t like Emil and doesn’t like him talking to _her friends._

Thinking about this is getting a bit frustrating, so Natalya looks to find other ways to entertain herself. Any other way she could possibly entertain herself to avoid thinking about the other people on the playground or school in general, which frustrate her.

Her gaze finds itself on the anthill by the side of the sandbox. So, being the kind of person she is, she immediately thinks of how she can ruin the day for a community of ants.

Stomping on it would be easy enough. Threatening to push someone into it would be funny. Maybe she could get her juice box from her bag and pour it down the top of the hill, but as she’s walking towards it, the earthworm poking through the top of the ground catches her eye.

Nat glances back at her friends on the swing set, who are currently pushing Emil on the swing. She considers telling them about her devious plan for the ants, but they must be having _so much fun_ right now. (There is a touch of bitterness when she thinks that, of all people, someone like Emil would be the one who takes away her friends. She shakes the thought away. That would never happen.)

She’s holding her finger out in front of the worm when a boy walks in front of her. The skinny earthworm crawls onto her index finger when she looks up at the boy. It’s Emil’s weird brother. Natalya doesn’t quite remember what his name was now―something with an E?

Emil’s brother looks a lot like him, but older. Blonde hair and dark blue eyes are his most apparent features, perhaps followed by the tamagotchi held in his hand. He had been playing with it only a second ago, sitting on the park bench and waiting for Emil to finish playing.

Typically, Natalya doesn’t like kids like Crybaby Emil’s brother, either. Ones who are inattentive and quiet are just as boring as snivelly kids like Emil, so to the best of her ability, Natalya tries to ignore him.

She looks down at the worm which is at this point _slooowly_ inching up her wrist to her forearm. She then turns to the anthill beside her, which has a parade of black ants crawling in and out of it. Crybaby Emil’s brother is watching while she holds the worm over the anthill.

“Did you know ants can lift fifty times their own weight?” He says, and Natalya has to assume he’s talking to himself, because there’s no one around but her, and he has no reason to be talking to her. “They’re also a lot like humans. There are workers, and a queen. It’s like a whole small community.”

The silence that follows his statement is a tad irritating. Natalya thinks he might want a response from her. She glances up at him with disinterest.

“Cool.” She says flatly, “I’m going to put a worm in their hill to freak them out.”

He’s quiet when Natalya lifts the worm up and drops it onto the anthill. She’s pretty sure a couple of the ants turn and run from the worm, while a few others are crushed beneath it. There’s a smug sort of grin on her face as she watches the chaos unfold.

Natalya kind of likes causing this sort of chaos; chaos on a small scale. She doesn’t think she could ever do something _really_ bad―though there are only certain things she considers _really bad_ ―but she’s always been fine with this sort of thing. Her dad says that it isn’t 'natural' for girls to be… rough, like Natalya is. Girls are meant to be soft and delicate and a whole bunch of other stuff that Natalya avoids being. She thinks it’s dumb, what he says about girls.

Doing whatever you want is extremely liberating  and really nothing that comes with living in her father’s household. Especially during the Adventure Game. Natalya can be in control then: the mastermind behind every plot, a mob boss, an intergalactic pirate alien who fights the boring human adventurer for ultimate power.

Said adventurer, in these scenarios, is usually played by Alfred. The fairy princess-queen, if there is one, is played by Malika, who has a magic wand and a Barbie purse and the gross bean bag throne she drags around everywhere. Leon will be Natalya’s sidekick or Malika’s servant if asked, but he’ll also play a main character at every opportunity. Leon likes pretending, and Nat likes how invested Leon gets in every role. She likes talking to her friends and she likes how much fun she can have with them and she _doesn’t like_ how she’s suddenly supposed to share that experience with Emil, nor does she think they need any extra people in the Adventure Game.

Emil’s brother holds a hand out to Natalya.

“My name’s Erik.” He says, and Natalya doesn’t like the way he talks; it gave her the creeps how she can’t read him at all. “I like you, kid. I think we’ll get along.”

“You’re a kid, too. You’re three years older than me. And how do _you_ know? I’m mean. I’m an ant murderer. I _pissed_ down an anthill once, too,” she adds, ignoring his hand. Bill always lectures her when she uses words like _piss_ or _shit_ , but he uses them all the time.

Erik actually smiles at that, a small smile. It’s a nice sort of smile, if Natalya was to be honest with herself. But it doesn’t change the fact that she’s talking to The Pain’s brother. He sits down next to her, cross-legged.

“I notice that Emil has his door locked whenever you and Iryna are around.”

“Yeah, because he’s scared.”

“You give him good reason to be scared. Wasn’t it you who wanted to put itching powder on his toys?”

“He’s a scaredy cat. He’s scared of everything.”

“I would be scared, too, if somebody told me half the stuff he told me you told him.”

There’s silence after that. Nat thinks about it. She didn’t think it impacted him that much, did it? Leon and Malika and Alfred would never make a big deal out of stuff like that. She chews on her bottom lip a little, pulling up grass between her fingers. She takes a particularly thick blade and puts it between her thumbs and blows, trying to whistle with it like how Malika taught them that summer and avoiding eye contact.

But then again, if she has problems with her friends it’s not like she’ll go crying to Iryna for help. She solves her own problems by herself, and she grows annoyed again.

“Let’s make a deal,” Erik continues. “It’s his first year here, and it’s been rough so far. Can you promise me that you’ll leave him alone until you both get used to each other?”

“I’ll leave him alone if he leaves me and my friends alone.”

“Hey now, Emil didn’t do anything to you or your friends.”

Nat wants to say that it’s because he’s here the Adventure Game isn’t fun anymore―they tried including him throughout the summer but always had to make stupid allowances for his stupid allergies and "bad immune system" and things―dogs and cats and even _grass_ , bullshit! Even worse, how he wouldn’t want to be the servant or slave or sidekick. He was at the bottom of their social hierarchy at the moment, so who gave him the right to be choosy?

If the social hierarchy were to be defined, Natalya would be at the top, glaring down at those beneath her. The benevolent queen bee of their society, whereas Crybaby Emil would be a grub feeding off of the workers and royal court, and yes, Natalya understands that this metaphor is getting a bit difficult to keep track of, but still.

And, and! Instead of letting natural selection take care of him, Leon and Malika would help him. Instead of ditching him like how she would, they’d give him first pick of characters. He was a terrible adventurer, for the record. It slowed the story down. It wasn’t half as realistic as it was before. It was the highlight of the summer, and now it’s nothing but babysitting.

It was dumb.

Somehow, though, and she didn’t know why at the time, she felt even worse telling him all that. It’s not that she didn’t want to tell him about the Adventure Game because it was _their_ game, even though that was part of the reason. It was more how she didn’t know how to tell him it without sounding like a dumb kid. It’s frustrating, and she could feel hot tears prickling at the corners of her eyes and turns her face, pretending to cough into her elbow before wiping her eyes.

“Need a tissue?” And he’s holding a tissue out to her. She stares at it and then she stares at him, and then she wipes away a long string of snot with her sleeve just to spite him and his dumb tissue.

“So, _do_ we have a deal?” He pushes.

Nat mulls it over, the deal. She doesn’t like Emil any better than before she had this conversation but at least now that school started everyone will have less time to be together.

“You have yourself a deal,” she announces.  And then, customary to the original members of The Adventure Game, Nat spits a huge glob of saliva into her palm and holds her slimy hand out for Erik to shake. For the record, Emil nearly fainted when Malika tried to shake his hand like that, and then they just did a normal handshake like animals, if animals had opposable thumbs.

Erik, on the other hand, stares at it for a fraction of a second before spitting into his own hand.

Their hands go _splap_ as they shake on it, and Nat thinks to herself later that maybe Erik isn’t as bad as he seemed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References:   
> _His stupid allergies and things_ is mostly a reference to how you can't reintroduce animals to Iceland once they've left. It's something you'd probably be better off asking someone with an immunology degree, which neither of us have at the moment :V


	7. Chapter 7

_Christmas 2005 - Malika._

Their relationship gets better, Malika reflects. Well, ‘their’ being Nat and Emil’s. She’s not sure when the shift between them occurred- it was really subtle is what it was at first.

Still, she doesn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, so she’s mostly quiet about it. She feels cautiously optimistic whenever Natalya seems to be civil with Emil, though. It’s nice, relieving, seeing everyone in the circle start to get along.

At the same time, she worries about the distance between the two of them. They’re not actively clashing and Natalya isn’t doing her best to scare the daylights out of Emil anymore, but they aren’t exactly friendly with each other. It’s more like a silent deal between the two of them that Natalya won’t actively harm Emil, so long as he keeps his distance.

The last time she tried talking to her about it had been Halloween, where Malika tried her best to convince Nat that just because they’re friends with Emil doesn’t mean they won’t be friends with her and that they should invite him trick-or-treating, but she honestly couldn’t remember what happens next. Nat had dropped her makeup brush (they were painting lion whiskers on Leon together) and sneered, “well, if you guys like him so much you can go trick-or-treating with him, instead?” and the issue was dropped, because that had been the the first time Malika felt scared of Nat.

That Christmas morning goes off without a hitch. Malika wakes up and hurries down the stairs to see the gifts lined up beneath the tree. Her dad makes pancakes at seven, they unwrap the presents after, and Malika goes four houses down to Leon’s house―they had a tradition of gathering at Leon’s house after presents, hanging around until his parents’ most important guests arrive for their annual Christmas dinner.

Christmas at Leon’s house, aside from being a bit crowded after the guests arrive, always seems to be … commercialized, to Malika, for some reason. When they were in New York, they would spend Christmas with her grandparents, and teachers at school always talk about how Christmas was a time for family, that sort of thing. Leon’s dad, on the other hand, is always hosting holiday dinners for “important people” the times he’s not out of town himself, according to Leon.

She’s apparently the last kid to arrive at Leon’s house―they’re all already gathered in his kitchen, Nat drowning cookies in her milk and Alfred pestering Leon’s mom, who is washing their turkey in the sink. Emil is there, too―he and Leon look to be intensely focused on a game of Connect Four.

After hanging her coat up and getting her own cookies and milk, Malika settles herself beside Nat, and all is well. They talk about how their Christmas mornings went―Malika tells Nat about her Christmas gifts. A copy of _Watership Down_ from her mother, as well as a few other books and a painting kit from her father. Nat questions why Malika considers a novel to be a gift, but says the painting kit sounds nice. After all, “you are the artist of the group,” Nat says.

“We’re getting a new mother as a Christmas present, according to Bill, at the breakfast table. He says, ‘now, children, I’m going to get you possibly the most important present a father can give to his girls―a new mother!’  She’s nearly twenty-five years younger than him; we did the math. I already hate her.” Nat declares.

Malika doesn’t understand that situation, or why Bill’s new wife is so young exactly, nor does she understand why Nat calls most adults by their first names behind their backs. Nat got a letter from her mother too, apparently, containing twenty Belarusian rubles―which equate to around ten dollars―and a message written in Cyrillic, which Nat can’t read.

“Bill was really mad when she sent me money the first year.” Nat announced. “He said, ‘I don’t want that sick whore contacting my children!’ and then he shredded the envelope and took the money and sent me upstairs without breakfast. But this year, I woke up early and got to the mailbox before he did, just to check.”

Malika doesn’t know what ‘whore’ means, but she assumed it was nothing good.

“Iryna got me a bag of Reese’s Pieces from the store, and a card,” she continues, “and she got a Rubik’s Cube for Erik, too. I was in the store when she got it. She told me that he’s not her boyfriend, but then I don’t get why she spends time with him or buys stuff for him. Bill buys stuff for his girlfriend and they spend time together.”

“Because they’re friends?” Malika suggests, pulling her knees up. At the mention of his brother’s name, Emil looks up questioningly at them. Nat ignores him―either that or doesn’t notice. 

She blinks, thinking about that for a moment, before shaking her head. “That’s dumb. You guys are my friends, and I didn’t get you anything.”

“You don’t have money.”

“Not true! It’s just that Iryna gets an allowance.” Nat says, “I got that money from the letter my mom sent me. I’ve gotta wait for Iryna to give it to me in American money, but still.”

The conversation continues from there. Malika kind of wants to edge it toward Emil and the issue at hand, but doesn’t want to push her luck.

Over the course of that afternoon they play Go Fish, Hide-and-go-seek, and Charades. To Malika’s delight, everyone seemed to get along quite well after Charades.

The first of Keith’s guests arrive at 4pm.

“This is when we usually leave,” Al says to Emil as they all watch the guests―an elderly couple, accompanied by a tiny dog held snugly in the woman’s arms―come in. Keith himself makes an appearance in a nice shirt and pressed pants and slicked back hair. 

“We could go to my house,” Emil suggests quietly, cleaning up the cards. “My parents are home, but no one’s inviting anyone over.”

“They eat their Christmas dinner on the 24th back in their country, or something like that,” Nat explains. She’s already grabbing her coat. “His brother told my sister who told me. We can continue playing there.”

“Can we go?” Leon begs his mother, tugging at her apron. “Please, please please _please_ -”

* * *

 So that’s how they spent the rest of December 25th, in Emil’s house.

Erik and Iryna are apparently in the kitchen helping his mom make cookies―she could smell them. He’s the one who opens the door for them, wearing his mother's apron. He has a smudge of flour on his face - it’s cute, Malika thinks.

Leon and Nat disappear with Emil almost straight away to ‘get ready’, as if they’ve been here before. It must be Al’s first time in his house, too, just like it is Malika’s. She takes in her surroundings with quiet interest― the Christmas tree near the window, the music stands, the photographs on the fireplace―she stands tip-toed to look at them curiously.

His parents’ wedding. Two children in snowsuits (resembling blue marshmallows in knit caps), building a snowman bigger than they are. A group of boys on the shore of some lake―she recognized two of them as Erik (in black swimming shorts and a backpack) and probably Emil (the smallest of the bunch with sunburnt shoulders, half his face covered by an oversized fishing hat) but doesn’t recognize the last three―their cousins, perhaps?

“Malika, look,” says Al, pointing and giggling at a set of pictures on the opposite wall, which appear to be a woman trying to wash a soapy baby in the sink. In one of the pictures the baby has a beard made of foamy bubbles. Malika giggles, too. _Is that Erik or Emil?_

They end up finishing their game of Charades in Emil’s room.

“I could take a nap here,” Leon declares, curled up on Emil’s carpet, his head in Al’s lap. Malika leans against Al’s shoulder, back to Emil’s bed, watching fat snowflakes swirl around outside. Emil is beside her, quietly shuffling the cards and putting them back, and Nat is sitting with a leg dangling off his bed.

“You still have a nightlight,” she observes, messing up his hair with an outstretched foot. “How old are you, again? Eight this June, if I recall? You’re even older than me.”

Emil grunts in response, returning the cards to Leon and moving out of her reach, smoothing down his hair.

Nat shuffles closer to him on her elbows, reaching out with a hand now to pinch his ear, her voice now a whisper. “You know what that means? Means you’re a baby.”

“Nothing wrong with being a baby,” Leon says sleepily. “Babies get free food and can nap whenever they want.”

“We love you the way you are,” Al adds reassuringly, patting his head. “Never change, Em.”

“It’s Emil!”

It’s getting dark, which means they should probably go home soon. She still has Christmas dinner to get to. Iryna and Erik come upstairs to tell them that cookies are ready.

“Can you bring them up?” Nat says from her spot on his bed.

“Get them yourself, you baby!” Her sister responds.

* * *

Malika’s mother picks her up for Christmas dinner half an hour before six. By then, Leon’s long since fallen asleep. Emil wanted to move him up to his bed―his mother says that they could. Nat wanted to find something gross to put down his shirt. Iryna says not to disturb him, that kids are light sleepers, and then undoes the sweater she tied around her waist, covering Leon with it.

Her mother and Emil’s mother end up talking for a while, first on their porch and then in their living room―it’s the first time they’ve talked face to face since Leon’s birthday, after all, she reminds herself. From what little she’s eavesdropped they’re talking about school and the curriculum.

She ends up eating cookies on the couch next to Erik, who shows her the series of books he got for Christmas about the biggest ancient civilizations and their cultures. He’s currently on the book detailing the Mayans, he says. There are two more of the books which he says he’s already finished and can lend to her if she’s interested - a book with a huge Viking longship on the cover and another one with the Parthenon and a beautiful marble statue.

Soon, however, her mother gets up from the couch, says that they really do need to go for dinner and that her dad is missing them, and Malika is pried from Erik and his books.

“He’s a nice boy,” Malika’s mother notes casually as Malika helps set the table. She nods emphatically―Erik is great. He bakes well and is nice to girls and it’s really cute how he likes baking and sketching and mythology, and he has such blue eyes and such a nice smile, and he’s so mature for an almost-eleven-year-old, she thinks. All the other boys who come to mind don’t compare at all.

“Who is?” Malika’s father teases, stirring the gravy on the stove.

“Dad! _Stop._ ”

During dinner she thinks about him, moving her mashed potatoes around her plate with her fork. _Erik._

The other three agree with Malika, at least when they’ve discussed him last. (November and on the schoolyard, she thinks.) Al loves him for his piggyback rides, Leon thinks that he’s really pretty, (or “handsome” is the word they’re told to use for boys, but Erik _is_ really pretty, Malika wholeheartedly agrees-) and although Nat claims that she doesn’t like “boring” kids like Erik,  she seems to harbor a sense of respect for him regardless.

From what Malika’s seen that past year, Nat really likes trying to find ways to shock him―telling him lots of trivia about human anatomy most other kids would be really grossed out about, or running to show him bugs with extra legs on the schoolyard, but she’s never been successful with it yet - Erik would always just appear interested _._

“Go on,” he’d always say.   

Not that Malika would admit that, of course―to admit that would mean to also admit that she spends her afternoon recesses hanging around near the big kid playground so she might catch a glimpse of him. Not that the other three don’t do that already- Leon said that he got his parents to buy tickets to the school musical just so he could watch Erik play the violin.

Leon stares, of course―he stares openly and unabashedly and goes pink in the face whenever Erik is brought up, of course, and seems to develop a newfound appreciation for cardigans and sweaters whereas before he couldn’t stand them, but at the same time he's also the discreetest kid she knows with this type of thing, talking to him and poking fun at him the most naturally between the three of them.

* * *

 After dinner, she and her parents curl up on the couch with popcorn and hot cocoa and watch _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ , like how they always do back in New York with her grandparents and cousins. It’s a tradition that goes back all the way to her oldest cousins, who are in their thirties. They talk about watching it as children, and they smile fondly when Malika speaks of it now.

When the end credits finish rolling, Malika turns to face her parents. Her mother rises to bring the cups to the sink, moving sleepily as she does so, but there’s one last unresolved thing from today that Malika wants to get figured out. And well, unresolved things bug her.

“Dad?” She looks over at her father, who is leaning back into the cushions, relaxing after watching the movie.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“What’s a whore?”

“Where did you hear that word, sweetheart?” He asks slowly, brushing her hair from her face. He doesn’t sound mad or anything-he never does, he’s the calmest man she knows―but at the same time, Malika feels that she asks a question that would get Nat into trouble, and she starts to backpedal.

“No, no! I mean, I mean, I heard it at … at school, it’s no big deal!”

Immediately after she says that she regrets it―it’s been quite a few days since school ended, it was a terrible lie―should she have said on the television? No, but then he’d ask what the show is―she fidgets with the hairtie on her wrist and looks up to see him, concerned.

“Did you hear it from one of our neighbors?” He says. “Natalya, maybe?” Malika’s face gives away the answer. She wonders how he was able to figure it out so easily.

Her father must be able to see the worry on her face, because his expression softens and he smiles at her gently. “It’s okay. I’m not mad at you or Natalya.” He assures, “A whore is word for a prostitute or loose woman, or at least, a woman who’s perceived as such.”

(Malika hears “lose woman,” and wonders what she might’ve lost.)

“Natalya’s dad called her mom a whore.” Malika says, remembering the tone Nat took on when imitating her father. “Does that mean she was a prostitute or lose woman?”

Her father pauses for a moment, as if considering what Malika just said, before shaking his head. “No, it doesn’t. It just means that Bill thinks of her as such.” He says, “Don’t go telling Natalya things like this, but Bill is the type of person to make a lot of judgements.”

Malika doesn’t think that Nat would be offended, hearing such a thing about her dad. Nat has said much harsher and much less forgiving things about her own father. Then again, she can be pretty judgmental as well.

“Is it bad to make stuff like that?” Malika asks, “To make judgements?”

Her father shakes his head, “We all do things like that. It’s normal to make small judgements.” He says, “Like, I can tell you are a wonderful, bright young lady.” He smiles, and his comment makes Malika do the same. “And, if I were to look at your friends, I could judge and tell you how old I think they might be. The problem, really, is the kind of judgements you make.”

“Well, what do you mean?” This is a little confusing, and when things are confusing, Malika seeks to make them less so.

“I mean, it’s one thing to think, ‘that person has a strong accent’ and another thing to think, ‘that person has a strong accent, so now I don’t like them’. Letting your judgements cloud your view of a person is the problem, usually.”

Malika has heard things like that before―she had a teacher last year with a thick Indian accent, and she remembers the other kids snickering during lessons and poking fun at their teacher. Malika never felt good about that … it felt _wrong._ Her teacher couldn’t control her accent, so why make fun of her for it―and she thinks she understands exactly what her dad means.

“So when Bill says things like that about the women he’s been with, you have to think about how he judges people, and what that says about him.”

Malika tries to think of the judgements one could make about her, or her family. They’re accomplished, she thinks. Her parents are successful and happy, and Malika hopes to be like them one day. She thinks of her family and how they look―dark skin and dark eyes and curly, dark hair―Malika’s father dons short dreadlocks, and her mother ties her hair back in a tight bun when leaving for work, and wears her natural curls in the house. Malika spends two weekends a month sitting still in front of the bathroom mirror while her mother flat irons her curly hair for dance. There’s nothing that really sets them apart from other families, in Malika’s opinion.

(But she knows that others don’t think the same. Other kids stare at her whenever black history is mentioned in Social Studies. Sometimes there are grabby girls who like to shove their hands in Malika’s hair when it’s curly. Sometimes Keith Kirkland grimaces when he sees her father, and sometimes even her.)

“So, I think, if you avoid making such judgements about people, you’ll be good,” Her dad says, before adding, _“and,_ I think it’s time for _one_ little girl named Malika Grace to get to bed.”

Malika is content sleeping that night. She feels that she’s learned something important today.


	8. Chapter 8

_January 2006 - Emil._

“I don’t want a nightlight anymore,” Emil announces. “Natalya says nightlights are for babies.”

Erik’s sitting cross-legged at the foot of his bed. He’s just finished reading him a chapter from his Ancient Egypt book. Or, well, he would have finished the book had their mother not come in to tell Erik that it was time to sleep.

“Let me finish this chapter,” Past Erik had said to their mother. “We have a page left.”

Now, he pauses for a moment before saying to Emil, “If you don’t believe everything I tell you, why would you believe everything Natalya tells you?”

Emil thinks for a moment. He has a point.

“Still,” he says. “She doesn’t have a nightlight.”

“Leon has a nightlight. Does she call Leon a baby?” He watches Erik get up and put the book on Emil’s nightstand, moving to turn the lamp off and the nightlight on.

“Yes? All the time?”

“Is Leon bothered?

“Maybe?” Emil doesn’t know where his brother’s going with this. “Don’t turn the nightlight on, Erik. And I don’t want a goodnight kiss anymore, either. Goodnight kisses are for babies, too.” He pulls the covers up over his head for emphasis. He could hear Erik chuckle. _What’s so funny?_

“Goodnight, Emil. Happy New Year.”

When he’s gone, Emil notices that it’s totally dark. He takes a few deep breaths. It’s gonna be fine. If Natalya can sleep without a nightlight, Emil can too.

In, out. In, out.

The moon and tree outside cast irregular shadows over his floor, and in the darkness, every sound seems to be strangely magnified. If he listens closer he could hear creaking. Sort of. And why exactly did they have to end the chapter in Erik’s book with the one about the creepy king and his curse?

When the hallway light is off, Emil silently creeps out of bed and moves to turn his nightlight on again. The darkness takes time to get used to, Emil thinks. He’ll just have to try again tomorrow.

* * *

 The next day, to his great surprise, Emil watches Erik run into his room, unplug the nightlight from behind his desk, and then run out of his room with it.

“Hey! Erik. What are you doing? _Erik_ , that’s not what I meant yesterday!”

He hears the door leading to their garage open and slam, and open and slam again. Then he could hear Erik jog up the stairs again before reappearing in his bedroom, this time holding a box under an arm.

“These are glow-in-the-dark stars,” Erik explains breathlessly, tucking loose hair behind his ear. “There are 735 entire stars, it says on the box. A star chart’s included, so we could even recreate the constellations. We can create Taurus and Gemini first, for you and me.”

Which ones were those again? He remembered Erik telling him about the star signs once, but not much. Still _._  Emil helps Erik tear off the plastic packaging and they pry open the lid together, spilling the galaxy onto his carpet.

That’s what they spent the majority of their afternoon on, sticking glow-in-the-dark stars onto his walls. The constellations. And after Erik turned off his lamp that night, they watch Emil’s walls and ceilings come to life together.

* * *

 And the next time Leon comes into his room again after violin lessons he looks absolutely amazed. Leon’s not a very emotional kid, Emil thinks, but here he is, wide-eyed with delight, hands pressed to his face as if he isn’t sure what to do with them. It’s almost funny.

“You should see it when it’s dark,” Emil says, pleased at his reaction. “It’s _so_ much cooler then.”

Gradually, the others come around too.

“We could take the Adventure Game to real space now,” Malika had said in a similar wide-eyed, hushed tone. Alfred had closely inspected a star close to his eye level, trying to peel it off.

“Stop!”

“I only wanted to see if it was glue or tape!” Al raises his hands inoffensively, backing away from the wall.

Emil waits for Nat to say something like, ‘wow, Crybaby Emil, I guess you’re not such a crybaby after all,’ but no such luck. Instead, she grins at him, two of her front teeth missing, and punches his shoulder good-naturedly, and he doesn’t even flinch.

“Space Adventures,” she says slowly. “Space Adventures with _actual_ stars. So, Emil, do tell us about this one.”


End file.
